I realised that. But their irony works because because it is a parody of how most old people actually are. Unfortunately this is also true for younger people.

BTW, the news about the UN climate change agreement says the agreed limit is 2 degrees C. I thought there were proposals about a 1.5 degrees C limit but that’s obviously gone now. One thing the news fails to mention is that global warming is already at 1 degrees C.

I don’t think either of these videos is at all helpful.
The first I dislike: it reinforces the message, presented by a bunch of otherwise genial and likeable old folk, that the only thing that matters is ME, that other people, other species, the future of the planet, is of no concern. Indeed, the second video shows why presenting a bunch of nice old folk declaring that they don’t care and will do nothing is so counterproductive.
The second video will be used by those who rail against the 97% consensus amongst climate scientists as reason for rejecting the consensus: “warmists are just sheeple, following the herd, whereas I am the brave sceptic, an individual standing firm against a tide of alarmists”.

Are you sure these videos weren’t produced by the Heartland Institute?

I disagree with you about the first video, although I can kind of see where you are coming from. How long, after all, is the time frame before it begins to personally affect me? Then there is the question of the personal return on my personal investment of money, effort and time. But as has already been pointed out at least with respect to these actors, they obviously do care.

While for many elderly people it may simply not be an issue they wish to concern themselves with, for many there is the issue of one’s legacy. Among animals we generally think that what matters are genetic descendants, but among humans there are those that do not necessarily carry on our genes, yet carry on our ideas, values and human legacy. Our actions may benefit future generations to a greater extent than they do ourselves, at least in terms of dollars and cents or material comfort, but there is the issue of who we are, which is in large part defined by how we act and the breadth of our vision.

I can also in the abstract see where you are coming from with respect to the second, but I see even less support. Denialists will always claim that they are the one’s that have the facts on their side, that they have the intelligence, science, rational vision, integrity, and so forth. As such, no doubt they will seek to appropriate any video that largely celebrates these values and virtues in the abstract.

They will argue that only they have the clarity of vision to understand how the world socialists and radical environmentalists seek to enslave the world by means of a made up emergency and the heroic will to oppose the destruction of human civilization, or something to this effect. Who knows? There may even be a few who actually believe what they proclaim. However, the video isn’t meant for them.

The second video is meant for people who can see to at least a limited extent the evidence for climate change, the rise in floods, drought and famine. Those who at least occasionally read about the science, but who are waiting for others to act. Some of these people may even argue against the evidence in order to avoid the discomforting fact that what they see and understand requires or at least suggests the need for action, but they perceive themselves as helpless to affect the situation. They need to get to the point that they ask themselves, as you no doubt have, if I don’t act, who will? If they act, their boldness may encourage others as well, and in greater numbers there will be greater effect.

Reblogged this on Don't look now and commented:
In the UK, Our housing market has screwed the young but rewarded the old who can fly round the world screwing up the climate – and the limp youngsters don’t notice.

We old codgers flying around the world aren’t the problem. Air travel, while 4 – 5% of the total AGW problem, is not the low hanging fruit here. It’s the way we generate electricity. Change a sizable majority of electricity generation to come from renewable sources, meanwhile changing a large portion of our surface transport to be powered by that clean electricity. That’s how we will (hopefully, eventually) solve this AGW problem.

That old denier canard: “You believe in global warming, so why do you still drive a car?” bulldinky. That *really* pisses me off.

Yes, if we could fix everything except air travel we’d have fixed 95% of the problem (or 92% in another 15 years), which is clearly a much better place to be, but air travel is also a very large chunk of many people’s emissions, and it can be fixed in a day (as opposed to a decade or two to change infrastructure). And ultimately we need to solve the whole problem (no net emissions), not just part of it, or most of it. Flying has to go in the medium term (hyperloops?), or run on biofuels/power-to-fuel.

And we can’t change everything else for _ages_. Some things are really intractable, like cement use/manufacture. And there will be a host of other hard-to-treat fossil uses.

I also reckon that flying is ’emblematic’ of the problem. It’s quite easy to do less of, but that usually has some ‘cost’ (see your friends/family less often, don’t visit some far-off place, miss a conference). If people won’t do that then they aren’t _really_ taking this seriously yet.

Like Lemurs, humans assume that someone is on watch, and will warn us. Usually that person is a teacher or manager or boss. I worked for a company that often performed high-hazard work, but had an excellent safety record. We were all trained to be safety monitors, and there were always 2 people designated to be safety supervisors and to sound the alert.

At the dedication of NCAR, climate scientists were referred to the “the Watchmen”. (It does not seem to be in the transcripts, but it was in the live radio broadcast that I heard downstairs in the key punch area.) I am not sure that climate scientists (today) feel the full responsibility of warning the world. There is altogether too much academic reticence and fear of being called “Alarmist”.

Climate experts have certainly called me, “Alarmist”. That is OK, none of them have awards for their teams doing a million man-hours of nuclear cleanup without a lost-time safety incident.

The fear of being alarmist rolls over into work product such as modeling methane with a short (12 year) atmospheric half-life to reduce expected warming. Mother Nature knows how to take CH4 out of the atmosphere. The half-life of methane in a rice paddy is less than 20 days. These days, she puts CH4 in the ocean where there is thousands of times more methane than there is in the atmosphere, and a lot of little critters in the ocean eat CH4, so CH4 dissolved in sea water has a half-life of much less than 12 or 7 years.

Look a the bump in global atmospheric CH4 after Desert Storm. That bump goes away too fast for the decline to be the result of atmospheric oxidation. Then, the 1997 bump shows what warmer ocean temps can do to the solubility of CH4 in salt water. The 1997 bump is from reduced solubility as a result of higher temperatures from El Nino and decreased O2 in warmer wetlands resulting in more CH4 production.

The concentration of methane in the atmosphere is an equilibrium with the methane in the oceans. If Mother Nature wants more methane in the atmosphere, she can always warm the oceans a bit. Then, CH4 will partition out of the oceans, and the little critters on the sea floor will make a lot more methane, real fast. Or, she can melt a bit of permafrost, and the little freshwater critters can make methane at rates that put the sea critters to shame. Of course, most of that methane will be eaten by other critters, and most of the rest of that CH4 will dissolve into the oceans, but freshwater critters can make methane pretty fast.

In short, in a time of AGW, atmospheric concentrations of CH4 are not likely to decline, and the CO2 equivalent (GWP) of CH4 for planning and policy purposes should be modeled at ~ 86. Today the 1.85 ppm of CH4 in the atmosphere has the GWP of 160 CO2e ppm. The idea that it is less than 50 CO2e ppm is pure academic reticence. It is no different than a bunch of people sitting for half an hour as the room fills with smoke and nobody raises the alarm.

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